It's all getting a bit 'Wonky donkey'

Starting question's: 

1. Do you need the flood waters of the story of Noah to have covered the WHOLE earth..? 
2. Do you need all of mankind punished for their wrong doing in order to understand the message of the flood story? 
3. Are you prepared to accept that the writer’s view of the whole earth may not literally have been the WHOLE earth?

Some might argue that the flood story demonstrates that due to the wickedness of people, our early civilisation needed to have been totally wiped-clean through the total immersion of water that covers the whole earth, in order for God to set his ‘new-birth’ plan into motion (We'll come back to this idea of baptism later). Or are you prepared to accept that the writer may have had a limited view of the world and it may not have been a literal world-wide flood, but rather a narrative?

The writer of the Genesis story would have had a world view that was only as big as the eye could see; he would also have had a limited view of the world due to the distances that could be travelled… Does the idea that God may not have destroyed everything, detract you from the meaning of the story within the scripture?

God is supernatural and can cover the whole earth with water if he chooses but perhaps considering the amazing variety of flora, fauna, insect and bird life… this story may not be a literal text, but a narrative text regarding the need for Yahweh to secure a people who recognised that he was the one-true-God; a people who recognised that only Yahweh was worthy of our worship, and a people who believed he was in control of the natural word.

The bible is big enough for both scenarios don’t you think? 

There are some who could not come to faith when presented with the idea that God would willingly kill so many people, preferring the idea of the narrative to a literal translation… The story is designed to show that God is interested in having a relationship with man. In looking at God's relationship with Noah, the story reveals the basis of that relationship, where Noah is credited by the writer as being righteous, and the actions that Noah takes to honour God in that relationship.

Hebrews 11: 7 – “It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before... that was outside of his understanding, therefore causing Noah to trust God. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world because he lived separately from it, and he received the righteousness that comes from God in displaying this faith.”

Noah is a symbol of the redemptive work of God in the ancient world, and not one of destruction. Destruction was a consequence of sin as ‘Man’ had become wicked and corrupt in nature, rejecting God as creator and living lives that were unjust and unrighteous. The people rejected God because in their opinion, a flood of such magnitude had not happened before. They believed more in their own wisdom than that of the word of God spoken through Noah, so they rejected his claim. The people were so distant from God that they didn't expect it to happen just because one man said that 'God said it was so'.

Noah was considered by God to be living a righteous life, giving us a picture of what God was searching the earth for, in a person such as Noah. In seeing Noah’s righteousness God is empowered to show him favour and offer mercy to him (Genesis 6). In response to God, Noah stands tall in his society to warn his neighbours of the coming danger and builds a visible representation of God at work in their world through the construction of the 'Ark'. A symbol of how the people could be saved by God.

We can read the unfolding story in Genesis 7 - 9. Noah’s peers mocked him for what he was doing despite the fact that he was being derided by their taunting, Noah was unmoved from his conviction or his sense of purpose. When the time comes for the earth to bear God’s judgement, Noah and his family are rescued by their faith in Yahweh and the ‘Ark’ he advised them to build. The start of this new life is sealed with a new covenant – “Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will flood waters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth." (Genesis 9: 11)

Noah’s new life is protected by Yahweh and his needs are provided for by the new life emerging from the receding waters. Noah appears to have immediately failed in his righteous living in this new world, after a fertile growing season and the fermentation of his new wine, He celebrates the harvest and all that Yahweh has provided, which ultimately leads him to the consumption of a large amount of wine… he got drunk.

The story is a symbol that man is not simply a product of his environment, but rather that the inner core of man was ultimately ‘wonky-donkey’ from the beginning – it looks OK from the outside, but what goes on inside reveals that there is something not quite right – in theological terms we refer to this as being spiritually dead,caused by the effect of sin in our lives.

It is too simplistic to look at the story of the flood and think of the judgement on man that warns us that God is someone we should ‘fear’ and out of this fear, learn to do what is right or else! People get the point that God is righteous and cannot allow sin to go unpunished. That’s why we tend to reject the idea that there is a deity that could do that! The consequence of sin in this story of Noah which runs parallel with life today, is our self-determination that leads to the breakdown of their civilisation, the desecration of their humanity, and the abuse of the natural world.

Don’t be shocked about Noah getting drunk… I know that God wasn't shocked by Noah’s celebration of all that Yahweh had provided… it would be Noah who had to live with the morning hangover! What is very clear however, is that it is the actions of his grandson in revealing Noah’s sorry state that needed addressing. It seems quite complicated but bear with me. It is Ham’s son Canaan that is cursed for a tell-tale like approach to uncovering Noah’s indignity… Noah’s other son’s Shem and Japheth try to cover-up Noah’s modesty and retain his dignity, so what was the issue?

There is some spiritual discernment at work here. Noah has heard the call of God through his righteous life and faithful obedience in following his instruction. He has learned to listen to God and perceive what is right, from that which is wrong. In this incident, Noah has insight into his grandson’s inner thinking. He recognised the influence of the old civilisation in the heart of the young man and with insight, declares that through Canaan’s descendant’s, he will be cursed not for what he did, but for the disclosure of his heart. 

So the story is not about what some might perceive as a vengeful God exacting rightful justice, but as a wider contextual realisation of the character of God. It’s about God looking out for those who stay faithful to him; understanding that God is against those who reject that which is dishonest and unjust; being fearful if we do not obey what is right in the eyes of God; and in understanding this, realise that God prefers to lift up those that bring honour to the lost and broken in society and in so doing, bring honour to Yahweh through their faithful obedience.

In this ancient civilisation, none but Noah and his immediate family were found to be worthy of saving… however even in his family, there was disunity. In Canaan’s actions, Noah had identified a descendant that would cause conflict with the new life they were building. In fact, the descendants of Canaan became a constant source of trouble to the people of Israel. Shem, the brother of Canaan became the ancestor to Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel, but the Canaanite's and Hittites both attacked Israel over generations. So Noah’s prophetic ‘curse’ became true with the passage of time.

You have always got to read the bible within its context to determine the truth that lies within its pages. You have in the story of the flood, an almost folk-like narrative of a time when people were generally living without any knowledge of their purpose in the creation of the world. Without this knowledge, they lived how they pleased and developed a sense of morality that suited their civilisation. We know later in the story about the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, that mankind had reached a point in its development where they believed they could reach up and touch the heavens. They saw that they had learned so much and achieved such greatness that they saw equality with God something they could grasp (Compare Paul's letter to the Philippians 2: 6).

In the Babel story, we can see that God was displeased with this behaviour because it was not the purpose of men and women to attain to be ‘like’ God, but to reach out to all corners of the earth as the image of God... as a testimony to God. At the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God banished his creation from the place where God would walk in the evening breeze (Genesis 3: 8); we could no longer stay in his presence due to our rebellion (Genesis 3:22 -23). Although banished from the garden, we were tasked with tending to creation and to honour God for what he provides through the growing of produce and the tending of animals.

Instead of honouring God for what he provided, the people were building the tower as a monument to their own achievements and in so doing, believed they were like God (Genesis 11). Again, you can see that in the peoples failure to honour God through spreading civilisation to the four corners of the earth, God intervenes by mixing up language so that they would indeed go their separate ways to conquer the world. Again this isn't a spiteful action, but a reaction to sin and its effect on our behaviour.

This was done because God has always had a purpose for his creation. He desired to create a world teeming with life, filled with men and women birthed in God’s image and in whose breath filled our lungs. He looked on his creation and said that it was good, and that men and women were very good! His desire was to develop a relationship with those he had created, as an expression of the wholeness and uniqueness of God. Our purpose was to tend to the earth and all of the creatures within it. We lived in unity and had all we needed. In Adams relationship with Eve, he was to fill the earth with descendants in a wonderful symphony of life that gave glory back to God.

In today’s broken world this seems implausible. We know that we could help to feed starving people in all parts of the globe but due to the unequal balance of wealth, we still prefer to be extravagant and build huge towers that go high into the sky as a symbol of wealth, status and engineering, just as Babel did. Yet we fail to correct the inequalities of capitalism and the effects of globalisation such as starvation, the lack of sanitation or clean water. God was not angry that the people of Babel built the tower… it was the desire of the people’s hearts and minds in extolling their own virtues rather than honouring God that concerned him.

Man was created for the edification of the whole of creation; not for a select few. We were designed for the proliferation of God in a world where those that look, will find evidence of his bounty and provision for all that choose to seek it; not for self-seeking individualism or the building of kingdoms at the expense of others… And yet with God’s purpose clear for all to see, we still reject him.

Later in the bible meta-narrative  the Nation of Israel was to be the witness of God in this world. Yet despite the miraculous events surrounding their release from captivity by the mighty Pharaoh, they were unable to attain the standard to which God aspired of them. God knew that a plan was needed to reconcile people back to himself in a once-and–for-all act that would even abolish our banishment from the Garden, and the curse of sin - death. 

God wants us back… He wants to restore our natures back to that which we were designed for. He never desired for us to toil and work for our salvation, this was the work of sin. How often people dismiss God because they think he wanted to punish us, or that there are too many horrible things going on in the world to believe in him… God NEVER wanted it to be this way!

When I look at Jesus, I see a man who was truly at one with his sense of purpose. Jesus, who was both God and man, felt that he could not be equal with God… He became a servant, referring to himself as a ‘Son of Man’… a son of Adam. He knows what it is like to be us, warts and all! He proved that he was able to resist the temptation of his human nature through his understanding of scripture, and in his humanity, he listened to the wisdom of men and challenged their reasoning; he interacted with people from all sections of society, and more importantly, still interacts with us today.

As Noah’s ark was being built in the centre of the land and in full view to all, similarly, Jesus was lifted high on the cross to reveal to the world that the Son of Man was capable of sealing a new covenant between God and men. Only Jesus has the personal integrity in his humanity to stand before God as a man and whose divine nature, was able to take the punishment that we deserved upon his own spirit. Only Jesus, the Son of God, could call on his father as an equal, asking him to forgive the likes of you and me. Like any father, God is willing to accept any petition from his Son… yet the price the Son had to pay for the request was through the sacrificial act of his saving grace… his own death.

Jesus lays down his life as a ransom for sin; death. This was not simply a cleansing as in the water of the flood, but a re-birth. Jesus’ spilled blood was the only way that death could be broken because he has power over life and death… “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28) John the Baptist who baptised with water said of Jesus: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

In one of the creeds used in the Church of England called the prayer of humble access, we recite the following phrase: ‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under your table. But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.’ It is part of the communion service that the Anglican Church does so successfully in its form of worship, and echo’s the point I have been trying to communicate here… God is doing-all-the-running! It’s HIS nature to have mercy; it’s HIS nature to want to reach out and save ALL who are lost and broken in this world. We are invited to share in the celebration of Jesus’ sacrifice by sharing the meal he taught his disciples to use… Take the bread; this is a symbol of my body, broken for you; Take this wine; this is a symbol of my blood, which is shed for you. Eat and drink the bread and wine in remembrance that he died for you, for the forgiveness of sins and for the promise of new life.

In the Vineyard tradition within the UK, we do communion really badly… dipping bread into a plastic cup of wine! But the meaning is more than sentimental ritual. Repenting (giving up) of our sinful nature and believing in Jesus, prepares us for the in-filling of the Holy Spirit, whose purpose is to comfort and counsel us on our journey through faith. Where once we stumbled through life being distracted, we can come back to God and ask him to forgive us for all the things we do, all the things we have done in the past, and all that are going to get wrong in the future.

In the Old Testament, Job speaks of the earth being able to tell of Gods glory and his provision in the natural world. We first have to accept that as we observe the natural world, we get a sense that we are God’s creation, able to make rational choices that may cause us to stumble and get things wrong. Recognising our need for God, we can repent of our sin and receive through Jesus, an inheritance far greater than I can achieve with my own strength. Like Noah, we can make mistakes but as we learn from him, the most important aspect of our lives is to recognise when God is calling to us to action. To be able to live and do the right thing, no matter what the consequences could be; and to continue to honour God with our worship.

HALT TIME… grab a coffee!

The story so far may be enough for you right now as it contains a lot to digest ad you may want to come back to this section later… If you want to continue, great! I have tried to build up a picture of the state of mankind, our sin, and the narrative throughout the bible of God breaking into our world for good. He has been influencing our journey throughout the generations through a variety of men and women of God to ensure that we stay true to our purpose. So for a moment I want to focus on a comparative view of our civilisation. 

Now this may seem like an odd section so please bear with me. In our sceptical post-modern world where people always question what truth is, I heard a very peculiar argument for the denial of the existence of God and dismiss the notion that we all carry a sense of right or wrong from a universal truth that is locked into each of us. 

The argument involves the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the naturalistic philosophy that our physical bodies are just a bag of cells that have emerged from nothing… that there is no creator God. As natural biological organisms, we have developed our reasoning through our social interactions in what we know to be true; our education; and the significant influence of parents or other adults.

However as biological systems, we are prone to having a break down. If a person became a murderer, we cannot so much as blame the person, as blame the fault that has developed in the person’s machine. So as a member of society, we will interact with one another as each machine has been conditioned, until a fault occurs. However some may function irrationally through some defect without any notion that it is wrong… it is just broken. So like any defect in any machine, we need to repair it… you get the idea.

What is very odd with this position is that being physical beings that are programmed by our upbringing and the collection of our natural properties, we do not have free will… we cannot have free will because we do not need to make choices about what we have been programmed to do. Therefore we do not make intellectual choices in our decision making because we do not need to choose between different courses of action; we function through pre-programmed instinctive reason and action - cause and effect. There are no choices to be made! So if what we do appears faulty, there is no one to blame but the fault, it’s just a malfunction. There are no standards of behaviour that we have to adhere to.

Free will isn't allowed because If we had it, we could make our own choices; therefore we could choose to murder knowing it is wrong…? So how do we know when our physical machine is working or whether it has malfunctioned? Murder isn't any more acceptable today knowing that it may not be our fault because we have a defective body... murder is exactly that; a choice to take a life or not. Alongside this idea that there isn't a sense of what is right or wrong, is the idea that if I try to persuade you that murder is indeed wrong, then I am simply trying to gain power over another using words. That gaining power over another is evil; so religion by default due to their philosophy of social justice is evil because we cannot do something wrong if we merely respond to inputs that could be faulty.

DO those proposing this form of human interaction really believe this stuff? It all seems to be a bit of an extreme piece of reasoning and without any sense of logic. We know murder to be wrong… it cannot be justified by the faulty machine model as there would be no sense of justice. There is no sense of Justice because there are no standards that have either a correct or incorrect option; they would argue that there is nothing to judge? 

We know that this is not true… it’s the same type of logic that those who say that the holocaust did not happen; that it was all propaganda… Yet we have a mountain of evidence, a variety of first hand evidence from the victims and the perpetrators, interviews and corroborating artefacts. We know that the holocaust took place and that it was wrong because there is something much ‘bigger’ than simply our understanding of the evidence… it’s our ability to use our deductive reasoning of the facts to reveal our conductive understanding of truth and untruth?  

Just as the ancient civilisation in the time of Noah rejected the notion that there wasn't to be a flood because they had not experienced one before, today we use the same kind of decision making around righteous and unrighteous actions. Some today still reject the idea that there are actions that demand justice; actions that lead to consequences; and consequences that involve some form of punishment.

As Christians, we understand that as people we are spiritually dead. Yet some people who do not profess to have any belief in God, exhibit a graciousness and gentleness of spirit that seems greater than that possessed by some people of faith! Those that serve in charitable work for a wide range of medical or humanitarian causes show a thankless determination to help those that cannot help themselves. However, no matter how much we may honour those who serve, the fact still remains that as descendants of Adam, we were born into ‘sin’. Good works do not solve the issue that at the very core of our being we are capable of sin.

Jesus was born a man; he is our greatest and only defender and mediator before our God who is Holy. We read the story of Jesus being tested in the wilderness for 40 days (Matthew 4: 1-11). Hungry and tired, his resolve was tested in three ways… food for sustenance; questioning Gods word and his promise; and the worship of God. These are familiar forms of distraction today. Providing for our physical needs can be found in the pursuit of our careers in order to provide for our families with the comforts of modern life; what short cuts can I make in order to get the best for my family? Could those short cuts be at the expense of my ethics and/or the needs of others?

Questioning our purpose and the call of God on our lives was the second challenge for Jesus, that remains with us today. Our post-modern sceptical view of God leads to doubt and disbelief in the existence of God, who he is and the promises he has for us; preferring instead to believe in the security of our own knowledge of the observed world and our understanding of the natural order. We try to sustain a sense of purpose through what we can get out of the world, and how we can improve our status in this one life. 

The final test for Jesus being the recognition of the correct form of worship that God desires; we place so many other things in our lives before God, that we don’t give him a second thought during our day. We fill our lives with so much 'stuff' that we can fail to listen to what we really need... Christians know that we have a God shaped hole at the centre of our soul that can only be filled with the presence of God.

The symbolism of Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days and Noah’s flooding rain for 40-days-and-40-nights for the cleansing of the earth, is also linked to the story of Moses revealed in the book of Numbers. It took 40 years in the desert to rid the Israelites of the sin they had learned from the habits picked up when living in Egypt: "The LORD was angry with Israel and made them wander in the wilderness for forty years until the entire generation that sinned in the LORD's sight had died.” (Numbers 32:13)

Jesus shows us through his test, that even in human form, he could conquer sin through his blameless response to the three challenges he faced in the wilderness. Jesus, born as the son of man, achieved victory over sin and the penalty of sin, death, could not bind him. Being both God and man, he could break the curse of sin that leads to death, and in his bodily resurrection, have victory over sin for all people (1 Peter 2: 22-24).

The waters of the flood are a symbol of the cleansing effect of water to wash away sin, as declared by John the Baptist in Luke 3. John knew that he could only prepare people for the one who was to come… “I baptise you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire…” (v16). The flood waters could only cleanse the land for a moment as we found earlier with Noah and his grandson Canaan… Jesus is able to remove our sins completely because being man and deserving death, his righteousness in resisting sin saved him from the punishment of death, and his divinity raised him from the dead…  “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

We are not machines as described in the naturalistic, new atheist philosophies, where man is simply a pre-programmed physical body through which some root command code has been pre-installed that cannot be altered due to it being flashed into our subconscious. In this philosophy, you do what you do because your body operates at a cause and effect level… there is no moral perspective for what you do; it’s a product of your gene. In this view point, you only trust what you see and have no free-will to decide what is best for your self-preservation… It makes my head hurt just trying to find the best way to describe this philosophical viewpoint!

We try to eliminate God from our social functioning because we do not want to deal with the idea that we might get things wrong. It may seem easier to ignore the God thing, but why are we not content with whom we are? It is too simplistic an idea to suggest that humans exist and there is no meaning other than to enjoy the present… why worry about the future?

Having choice and the free will to do what is right, points to a rudimentary set of standards or principles that we must follow… we make a choice… we choose to believe that there is a right way, or we choose to reject that truth. My faith is a reflection of the truth I hold dear… I believe that by holding onto truth, no matter how I might be feeling, my faith remains. I can only find peace knowing that the love of Jesus Christ is at work in my life, the lives of my friends, my community, and this earth.

We are born to be free; we are not trapped in a pre-programmed loop without feedback to keep us in check. If our lives can be described as a system, we are an open one... one that CAN respond to feedback - the influence of God on our lives through the filling of the Holy Spirit is the feedback that we all seek. Jesus is the most liberating rational choice you can make. He stands in history as the one who can bring light to the darkness – let him illuminate the door of your heart and as he knocks, open the door and receive him. Then you will see all that you ever thought possible.

Going to finish with some scripture from Luke 24: 3–34… as you read it, I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the truth just like these two followers on their journey. That the real Jesus will reveal himself to you, not just as some story, but as an experience alive in your heart, making it burn within you; encouraging you to make your own journey into faith.

³ That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. But God kept them from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”

They stopped short, sadness written across their faces.Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.”

“What things?” Jesus asked.

“The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.

“Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive!Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”

Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn't it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them. As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!

They said to each other, “ Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?”

A lie? No. An act of faith? Yes! It’s your call.

What is wisdom? I don’t mean the type of wisdom where you know an easy route around a traffic hotspot without the aid of a sat-nav or taxi driver! I mean real wisdom. King Solomon, the son of King David was asked by God what he wanted, err… rewind. Yahweh, the God of the heavens and the earth asked a mere man, what he desired? I don’t think there is any other account recorded in the bible where this type of invitation is given. Now Solomon was wise enough as the son of David and heir to the kingdom, to ask for the wisdom that he perceived he lacked, but was also wise enough to recognise his need for God’s wisdom for the benefit of his kingdom?

Christians are often accused of lacking rationality or lacking in wisdom for having ‘blind’ faith in a God that cannot be proved. However, as can be seen with Solomon, Christians do not suspend our reasoning in pursuit of a higher calling; rather we employ it to help us make sense of the world around us. Solomon was humble enough to appreciate that being son and heir did not ultimately provide him with the platform to govern. He needed something more… he needed the presence of God that he had seen his father David seek.

Growing up in the palace, Solomon would have had tutoring by the wisest advisers, and would have received counsel from the teachers of the law. He would have had access to the political and spiritual discussions that took place in the palace, and the coming and going of court life. He would have been aware of his father David’s failings, as well as his victories,  so perhaps wisdom was the only logical option.

There are many people today who cannot be told… Sometimes it seems their character works counter to established wisdom; sometimes because it suits them to do so; and sometimes because their belief in something better, drives them forward to enact real change in their lives, and the experiences of those around them. There are those that like to be a force for good in our world, but there are equally as many who only seek out what is best for them.

So Solomon saw that he required wisdom to govern with righteousness and grace. He wanted to be fair in his government and usher in the complete peace of God. The Hebrew word for peace is ‘shalom’… this is the same peace that God promised the nation as they entered the Promised Land. Due to Solomon’s wisdom, he was able to do the right thing by the people he governed and by God, who was the source of all that he and the people had.

Solomon didn't always get it all right. The King of Israel was not supposed to acquire certain items from their neighbours in payment for treaties between nations. For example, the king of Israel was forbidden to accumulate horses, as Egypt was the source for trading in horses which may cause the people to want to return there (Deuteronomy 17:16). The fear being that any assimilation of the culture of other nations could corrupt the worship of Yahweh and break the covenant that God had made with the people of Israel.

Solomon had accumulated many horses from Egypt (1 Kings 10: 28), so had broken a commandment given to the kings of Israel by God. We also know of his many wives and concubines which are later recorded as being a cause for trouble in the palace… (1 Kings 11: 1-13). I struggle to find evidence for wisdom in these stories of the account of Solomon’s reign, where he is warned about the dangers of a particular action, and yet still suffers the effect of the consequences for ignoring it. In fact, Solomon’s actions lead to the break-up of the nation and the loss of a golden age of the Davidic reign where Yahweh’s shalom was never to return Israel.

However, Solomon’s fame and wealth spread throughout the ancient near eastern region, causing even the Queen of Sheba to leave her kingdom, thought to be modern day Ethiopia, to witness what she had heard. Overwhelmed by the presence of Yahweh in the temple worship, and her witness of the provision of God for the people of Israel, the Queen returns to her own kingdom, proclaiming Yahweh as the one true God (1 Kings 10: 1-13; 2 Chronicles 9: 1-12).

This was the true purpose of the nation of Israel… to reveal to the world by their worship and culture, the heart of God. In this mission, Solomon was a great example, but as you read through the book of Ecclesiastes, you get the impression of a man reflecting on his mistakes with a clarity that seems at odds with the height of his reign. I like particularly where Solomon’s desire is for us to work hard and honour God through our service; then to sit back against the setting sun and enjoy the fruit of our labour and God’s provision through it… As though this is a characteristic for a full life.

Solomon reveals that in all of his wisdom, he could not escape his nature. His wisdom could not help him in his old age from dishonouring God through the worship of other idols. Indeed the constant refrain, ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ found in Ecclesiastes 1: 4-11, is almost an admission in the futility of the desire to strive against the inequalities in the world. The writer suggests, ‘it’ has all been done before. Rather, our goal should be to do our best in whatever cause we are fighting for and to balance this with the desire to be content with what God provides.  Jesus refers to this when talking about Solomon’s greatness:

"Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.” (Luke 12: 27)

So it would seem that wisdom in not an absolute, nor is it a guarantee of good conduct. Wisdom in and of itself, is of no use when corrupted by the desire of our hearts or our will. Sometimes, the things that we do seem ‘good’ at the time and with hindsight, we can often reflect that we had miss-read certain indicators. Our decision making can be compromised by a range of factors in order to pursue our vision of things… We can become emotional detached within our decision making where ethics are concerned, particularly where it involves people less fortunate than ourselves. It is often easier to make cognitive decisions without emotional attachment to people or events; or the opposite; we can become so emotionally involved that we lose our rational thinking.

In any case, our wisdom can be compromised by what we choose to believe to be true… Similarly, our confidence in wisdom is of no real substitute to good reasoning. Confidence in ones reasoning is not a substitute for God either… in so doing, we place ourselves in a position where we believe we are equal with God; being able to rationalise our existence within the limited confines of what we think is possible, rejecting that which might appear unscientific or that which might contain the rhetorical question of “What if..?”

There are those who can only deal with mystery when dealing with rational, concrete starting points that are observable. From this observation, we can theorise what we believe to be true, experiment with the various conditions to the hypothesis we form, and collect enough data to determine whether indeed, we have stumbled across some new understanding. Some may argue that belief in a supernatural being is an irrational notion because you cannot conduct this type of critical, analytical thinking to an incomprehensible concept.

In the Garden of Eden, the first seeds of doubt are sown into the inquisitive mind of every human being; the notion that we can understand all that there is to know about life through our own investigation into the known, and the unknown.

“God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” (Genesis 3: 5)

God created us in his own image… to be creative; to be in relationship; to understand the conscious reasoned understanding of truth; and in community, live a righteous life in the pursuit of holiness. In Genesis 3: 22, God recognises that we understand the difference between making good decisions and in making poor ones… the beginning of reason you might say? (This is a rhetorical question designed to make you think about the origin of our sentient life). 

With the ability to reason, we are encouraged to populate the earth and to cultivate the resources of the land; to prosper and live out our lives, in honour of our creator. If our reasoning concludes that there is no God because of our rejection of his intangible presence at work in the world, then we can also pick and choose what we want to accept as truth, without the confines of religion.

There are those today who argue fiercely for the rejection of all religious ideology from public life in favour of their own sense of virtue. If we reject weak argument, inconclusive arguments, unexplained phenomenon for the rational and the known world, we will improve society and remove the constraint of religious ideology that tries to contain the human spirit. If you see the parallel with the story in the Garden of Eden, it is the same question asked of Adam and Eve when they were tempted to doubt God: “Did God truly say?”

Without God, we are free to come up with our own conclusions, based on the reasoning of the greatest thinkers and scientists from our known world, because we are the experts in that field, and we can find no evidence for believing differently about God.

Some in the scientific world would argue from the body of evidence collated that our known world was from an explosion of life… that over millennia, the energy of that birth has evolved a sentient world where we can reason the why and the how. That this indeed is science fact, not fiction; there is no purpose to life, only existence… How we choose to exist in this life is of nobody else’s concern but our own. To decide what is right or wrong, beneficial or harmful is my own choosing and I will leave it to my peers to judge the success of my decisions. Some argue that civilisations have developed in spite of religious frame-works and not because of it… We are now fully aware of our known world so can cast out any of the superstition formed in our ignorance…

Without God, we can believe in our own sound-bite because we authored it and published it; we have reasoned it in our own mind and found it to be true. When our belief is challenged, our ability to enter into reasoned argument is what is really at stake. Do we suspend our objections to be able to resolve the argument, or do we harden our resolve? 

The scientist who rejects God as a supernatural deity because he or she cannot comprehend him in the natural world, will never find God if they reject the experiences of the people who profess to believe. Neither can people of faith understand why people of science need to see a reasoned logical argument that has evidence based in truth?

Neither side will reach agreement when respect and integrity are questioned. The church is accused of arrogant presumption when it comes to making decisions, however beneficial, on behalf of our societies. Those who feel that the church has been a poor steward of that role, will react most to its apparent intervention in a reasoned debate, where they talk of faith and experience, rather than evidence based fact. There is often an over-simplification on both sides when discussing these issues, sometimes resulting in miss-understanding, and at worst, personal attack for their apparent naive position.

That is the point at which the bible opens… we are presented with the question: Will you trust God for your protection and accept his guidance or reject his counsel and make your own choice? You are made in his image and he loves you so dearly and cherishes you the most out of the whole of creation. God sent his own son Jesus, who was willing to carry out the will of his father for the sake of humanity, in order to preserve it and save it from itself. OR, in rejecting the idea of a God who loves and cherishes his creation in favour of our natural curiosity, inquisitive nature, and self-determination… we put our 'faith' in our knowledge and understanding, based on our observations of the known world; through evidential based research; and in the reasoning behind a concept or theory that makes sense to us.

This is the difference between science and faith. Science explains the known world but cannot give sense to its purpose… perhaps it doesn't need a purpose – life is life. There are people who need more than that. Is this all that there is? If we cannot understand the nature of God because we do not believe in the supernatural as we have found no evidence for it, then why do we live on earth as we do? What is the purpose of society… why be involved in it? Christians believe our existence to be about community and family because God designed us to be that way.

If we reject the testimony of those people of faith who state that they have ‘felt’ the presence of God, believing it to be an emotional construct or psychological crutch, then I am only left with my own wisdom. I know that I make mistakes… society makes mistakes; and how do we deal with the parts of our lives where science has no answers? Both sides may argue fiercely to protect what they believe to be true of the world we inhabit; both believing they are right; both believing that the other is ignorant of what the others position is.

The world of science and the people of faith can happily co-exist without enmity, but there are those that would want to polarise opinion. For example, the theory of relativity: The idea from science fiction that we can warp or fold space and time to reduce the distances it takes to travel the universe. Christians as well as scientists can make use of this concept to explain both the universe and the character of God. One of the theological words that Christians use to describe God is Omnipresent. The term is used to describe how God can be at all places at one time; that supernaturally, God is everywhere… you can follow my thinking here.

Where some can believe in God being everywhere because of his supernatural nature, we can understand perhaps, how we can use science to explain how that might be possible within the realms of physics. People of faith do not need the assurance of scientific theory to enable them to believe because God is not bound by science as he is supernatural.

There are those who will reject the very idea that we can leave such concepts to faith or mere belief. In using the theory of relativity, Christian’s can help the sceptic to scaffold their understanding of the divine nature of God with the help of a scientific principle, because it has been theorised through the rigour of the best scientific minds in its formulation… and in so doing, reveals the nature of God.

For some there will always be a level of doubt or lack of understanding with faith because their rational self is not willing to enter into a more open ‘What if..?’ type question. Christian faith is not filling in the gaps between science and theism (belief in one God); they run parallel and indeed overlap each other. As we begin to understand the origin of the universe, we can find the meaning of existence, because it reveals to us the creator behind each miracle of the life we have.

I have used this verse from 1 Peter 1: 8 before, because it is one that is at the core of my faith. I think that it is as appropriate here because it expresses how we demonstrate our faith – “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious and inexpressible joy.”

God calls out to us from all of creation; you may disagree; God is revealed in the nature of righteous people; you may disagree with that too; civilisation can testify that God has done amazing things, but you may doubt its testimony. What you cannot do, is to ignore Christ. He occupies a space in time and history where his teachings reformed an empire and through it, his message spread to all corners of the world.

Jesus was God who became man; demonstrated by the fulfilment of many ancient texts that were available at the time of his birth, and of which you can cross reference for the evidence you seek; texts that have been passed through the generations and survive within the translation of the bible. His radical teaching about the love of God divided the very people he was sent to guide to the extent that he was misunderstood and crucified. This is the historical record of Jesus… That he chose to give up his life to save us from ourselves!

And now to the supernatural: Man believes that death is final and that there is no afterlife. Jesus’s physical resurrection stands as a witness that this is not true. Many people, whose stories are written in the New Testament, witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit resurrecting Jesus to new life. These early Christians professed Jesus by their conduct and their love for one another. The Holy Spirit still testifies to this today, in the lives of men and women, people like you and me; that God is still at work in this world… 

A lie? No. An act of faith? Yes! It’s your call.

Logic is only the beginning of wisdom. Faith is what matters… when all other possibilities have been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, that is truth. Give your life today to the one who gave you his all, it is the only reasoned choice you can make!

Jesus... Superhero?

Who is your favourite superhero? Mine is the Batman. I like him because he represents an ordinary, all be it wealthy, human being whose tragedy has been turned into an altruistic set of actions for the benefit of the society he exists in. Rather than having invincible super-powers like Superman, he uses his intelligence, wealth, technology and his physical stamina in the pursuit of a vigilante style justice. In the Christopher Nolan re-boot of Batman, Bruce Wayne is prepared to accept the role of a scapegoat, in order to see the greater good.

 I can see a lot of parallels with this notion of a super hero in the way that some people view God. They see him as a supernatural being who intervenes in the affairs of man, in order to set our ways straight. God is supernatural… he is creator of the universe and has time in his hands. However, I don’t believe that God is in it for the quick fix. I have seen and heard of people whose situations have been miraculously transformed by the work of God in their lives. In my own life, I have encountered God through his filling of my soul by the Holy Spirit. I know that I owe God my life… he is the force for good in everything I think, say and do.

God works in my marriage, my skills as a father, my employment. God helps me appreciate what I have in my life, family, friends, social interactions… He fills that part of my soul that was designed to have relationship with my creator. I strongly believe that God’s hand in my life is the reason I am what I am today. HE completes me. Without God in my life I could have filled it with any amount of stuff that I think that I need like sex, material possessions, wealth, drugs, music, fashion, career… The list of things that could distract me from my relationship with God is endless.

In 2005, I was diagnosed with having a malignant melanoma on my shoulder blade. I went to the dermatology specialist in my lunch time from work who decided to remove it straight away under local anaesthetic and do a biopsy. I am clueless when it comes to medical illness so afterwards I went back to work! School was in the middle of an OFSTED inspection (UK government inspection), and I felt a duty to return. By the end of the day, the anaesthetic had worn off and I was not really in any fit state to have supervised the students!

As I got home and told my wife about the day and gave her the leaflet about what I had experienced, I could see in her face that I should have been worried. My wife is an occupational therapist who works in palliative care, so she knew the meaning of what I was telling her! I was ignorant of this and never felt at any time as though I should be worried, or even that I needed to. It may seem strange perhaps, but I knew that my supernatural God, father and friend, would not put me through more than I could bear.

The biopsy result came back positive so I had to undergo further surgery and 5 years of monitoring. I can remember my consultant in one of these sessions putting his sun tanned hand against my white skin, turning to the students who were observing him, and smiling as he said, ‘you can see from the contrast that this has not been induced by too much sun bathing!’ I know that my wife was really concerned about the medical prognosis as the proximity of the melanoma could have meant the cancer spreading into my lymphatic system and then I would have been in a far worse state. But I never gave it a thought… I sincerely believe that God gave me the ability to ignore what could have been an extremely tense and worrying time, by filling with me with his reassurance.

When people ask ‘Where is God?’ or state ‘There is no evidence for God!’ I tend to wonder what type of God they are seeking. Just like superhero’s have got different ‘powers’, what is it that people are looking for? As stated in last week’s blog, society has been doing a pretty good job at marginalising expressions of faith. As soon as people think about God, they always associate him with poor religious experiences, or judgemental attitudes that they have received from those whom they have encountered. Or they believe God is some kind of supernatural hero who has neglected his duties when you look at the state the world is in.

To some people, their experiences of life have no place for God. In the UK, schools do not sing hymns of have daily readings from any religious text. The student’s experiences of formal assemblies in school tend to be on the need for success in examinations or information on the personal, social, health or emotional emphasis that has been passed to schools due to the limited guidance found to be offered in the home. I believe that in our culture in the UK, many adults only encounter religious views through the media and through sound bite, rarely engaging with an experience of faith, and put off by the unknown.

It is therefore the Christian’s mission to live a life and express values that are appealing to our neighbours, families and friends. Paul tasks us with being able to give a reason for the hope we have within us. Some Christians are not very confident about doing this with their friends because of fear of rejection or indeed, in being unable to communicate what they believe in any joined-up way?

Belief in God can have different forms of expression which we can call our ‘theology’. People can interpret their theology in literal ways and express this as faith; a set of beliefs that govern the way we think and feel. There are different levels to our belief in what we know. It begins with our sense of who we believe God to be. God exist outside of time and space, but is also ever present. Christian’s believe that God is all knowing and has the power to intervene in our world. We believe that God intervenes in our world because he created it and loves it! Our experiences of God’s intervention in our lives builds our faith in who he is, and strengthens our hope for the things to come.

The question that is always asked is this: “If there are any remaining un-reached tribes in the world, would they recognise the existence of God in their world?” My answer has always been yes. The reason being, as mentioned in my last blog, is that I cannot believe in the randomness of the big-bang theory. I am more than prepared to accept that the events of the ‘big-bang’ are credible for the origins of the universe, but I am not at all convinced in the idea that in all probability, at some point in the process, the earth and the delicate interplay between the sun, the moon and the seasons of the world occurred out of a sense of chance that it could happen. I haven’t got any faith in the randomness of this type of science; whose theories of relativity or laws of probability make this is a conceivable option.

The way the world functions; its order expressed through plant species and their function in the different regions of the world; the hierarchy of marine, animal, bird and insect life is perfectly balanced until the introduction of man! If we were an evolved species reacting to our need to adapt to survive, we haven’t been a particularly good steward of our environmental responsibility or our animal welfare record? We have always taken the planet and all of its resources as expendable because we have mastery over it, rather than being evolved from it.  

I used to live a one hour drive to the Lake District in Cumbria. From my bedroom window I could look across the roof tops of Morecambe and straight across the bay with a view of the mountains. I used to enjoy cycling to Windermere and climb the nearest mountain to enjoy the view for my journey back across the bay from a different perspective.

I knew that I was sat in a glacial valley and that Lake Windermere was actually a residual creation of the melting ice. I can look for where the ice had frozen to the rock and wrenched it down the mountain causing glacial deposits, and the effects of weathering on the landscape. 





What I would be actually doing as I looked across at Morecambe Bay, was contemplating my existence in the grand scheme of things. I was quite a lonely child, even with three brothers, but the cycle and the subsequent climb connected me to the earth through the realisation that God was in control and had been for thousands of years. My response being to enjoy the sense of belonging… that the sense of well-being that I felt as I sat looking across the bay at my hometown, with all the problems that I experienced there, would fill me with a sense of Gods presence.

My choice then is in how I consider God’s hand at work in my life. Do I choose to believe? Am I persuaded enough by the physical observations I have made about my corner of the world to believe? So how do I then come to ‘know’ God once I am prepared to accept the reality of God and enter into a relationship with him? This is where cultures that have no ‘religious’ framework to organise their faith can develop odd practices. For example, those that worshipped the god Baal would sacrifice babies to gain his favour and protection!

For the Christian believer, why do we do what we do; how is our theology expressed in our faith and our actions?

I always wonder what religious ceremonies Abraham, Isaac and Jacob performed prior to Moses and the establishment of the Law? We know that the ancient near eastern practice was to offer a sacrifice of an animal, usually a lamb and that Adam's son Cain was aggrieved that God accepted his brother Abel’s first born lamb offering, over his own grain offering… (Genesis 4). What is clear however is that until God established a holy people; the nation or Israel; as a witness to reveal to the world his mission, he chose individuals like Abraham as the ancestor whose life and faith was to give glory to Yahweh. It must be assumed therefore that these people inherently understood what an appropriate act of worship was for their creator God. By studying their choices and reading about their lives, we can look for a pattern of faith that they understood to be true. As we read their stories, they reveal how God was at work in their lives, and that of the culture they encountered.

Today, we are not so much feeling-our-way to faith, but living in the same promise that God gave to Abraham and his descendants, through King David and right through to his descendent, Jesus. In Jesus we find the way, the truth and the life. God is no longer some distant supernatural deity, but is in fact a real person. In Jesus, the kingdom of God is revealed for all to see. His life was lived in fulfilment of all that had gone before, and all that is to come. His life stands out brightly as a radical who challenged the religious practice of the culture, and realigned it through his death with the desire of God.

Jesus came to re-set the tradition of faith by re-affirming what God had long since put in place. God established his people Israel as a holy nation and a royal priesthood. Through Moses, God establishes in the desert, the Tabernacle as a central place of worship. Later, the spirit of God rested directly in the centre of the nation, in the temple built by Solomon. When the people were true in their worship of Yahweh, his presence was with the people, they prospered, and they had peace. When the people turned away from true worship, Israel was left vulnerable to its enemies and the people were eventually exiled to Babylon; the temple destroyed; the hopes of the nation lost.

Although the temple was rebuilt and the people repatriated to Jerusalem, the people knew that the presence of Yahweh never really returned to temple worship. Jesus was born into a time where Israel was again occupied and ruled by a military government. Although the Pharisees and keepers of the law were allowed to have governance over religious matters, they were looking for the return of the king, the Messiah, to rid them of Roman rule. In Jesus we find that the penultimate act of God was being established.

Jesus said that he could destroy the temple, the place for the worship of Yahweh, and rebuild it in 3 days… This being a symbol of his death and resurrection clear to those who had studied Isaiah 53. The Jews existed for the very fulfilment of this promise of God, and yet after waiting between 400 to 500 years, they seemed to have forgotten how to recognise the coming of the Messiah when they heard the teaching of Jesus and witnessed what he did.

Jesus taught that our bodies are the living temples of the Holy Spirit, not bricks and mortar. That those who believe in him and confess their sin would not perish but have everlasting life…  Jesus came to bring the kingdom of God back into the centre of our worship and of our faith. In his wisdom, his teaching and his life, we can recognise the truth of God and recognise that as a descendent of Adam, we are all lost. We were once in Eden, but that promise is but a distant memory, forgotten by a busy materialistic life that we believe compensates us for the hardships we face in life but in the end, returns us to the dust from which we came.

In Jesus we can find rest for our souls and restoration. We can be made free from the drudgery of our earthly existence, and begin to live with a different perspective. Jesus elevates our world view beyond our introspection, and onto an eternal perspective, where we know that we are a new creation. No longer will we be reminded of our loneliness in the middle of the busyness of life, or the short term fulfilment that can seem so fleeting.

Jesus invites us to meet him in the middle of our modern lives to ask a simple question… Do you love me? If we love him, we will be willing to confess the failures of our self-centred nature, to the one who willingly sacrificed his own life for us! Jesus is big enough and capable of cleansing our souls… He is the Messiah, who comes to judge the living, and the dead. Jesus, who had no sin, enables those who believe in him to place our sin at the foot of his cross. We can say with confidence as the robber who hung next to Jesus said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” and Jesus replies, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

As we meet with Jesus today, we enter into his judgement and his justice. By his act of love we are freed to live a holy life, free from our past. For in Jesus, the kingdom of God has arrived. But as Peter says, there are times when it will be hard. There will be times when we will be questioned for what we believe; persecuted even, for our faith. There will be times too, when we cannot understand why God can allow the death of a loved one, or that violence to continue…

All I know is that my God is real, he has always been faithful to me, and he is my everything… I encourage you to find out who Jesus is for yourself; read what he says in the Gospel story; speak to Christians about their faith; have fellowship with one another, and be a light shining brightly in your community. Let our lives reveal the fathers heart to the world he loves so much. Let us pray for a new move of the Holy Spirit so that we can have a fresh revelation of God in our world today.

God bless you.